March 26 2011 at LUNA in LAKE CHARLES

We have headed east in I-10 many, many, many times for gigs. PLUMP always likes playing over at LUNA in Lake Charles, and in some ways even the drive out that way is soothing - if for no other reason than its familiarity. Every time we are driving through Beaumont, I always make a comment about the Babe Didrikson Zaharias museum. If I remember my sports history correctly (I could take a minute to look her up on wikipedia right now, but I won't), Babe Didrickson Zaharias (BDZ)was the best female athlete for the first half of the 20th century. I think she dominated the pentathalon or decathalon, or whatever that multi-event "thon" that has become an afterthought in this day and age, but in the decades past was the definer of "best athlete in the world". (OK, I just went to wikipedia, and I am happy to report that I was pretty much on point regarding my BDZ fact knowledge. BDZ was a champion in track and field, golf, basketball and was an expert diver and bowler. BDZ also claimed to have won first prize in a Texas State Fair for sewing - not a joke. The site also says she was quite proficient at pocket billiars - but not a champion.) But I digress. The reason I bring up the BDZ museum in Beaumont is that the museum looks like it is about the same size as my living room. The museum is circular, and from the highway looks like about 25 feet in diameter. If the BDZ museum holds one of BDZ's prized javelins, my guess is that the javelin barely fits. PLUMP has never stopped at the BDZ museum on the way to Lake Charles because (a) the museum is probably closed by early evening on Friday/Saturday nights; and (b) we don't have time. Although, I really think (b) is not a valid excuse, because by the size of the building we could probably see the whole BDZ museum inside of 10 minutes. (If curious, go check out BDZ's wikipedia page, as I am pleased to report that a picture of said museum is on the page!!!)



I have written about about LUNA and the staff and food and beer many times. LUNA always seems to improve on their venue everytime we come to Lake Charles. This streak continues, as they informed me that Dave (owner of LUNA) recently purchased the music venue across the street, so in the near future the bands will play over there. We have played said venue (for the life of me I can't remember the name) a couple times - an inside venue - and with Dave and staff running it I am sure the venue will be AWESOME. Hopefully they will still provide us with a cooler of Miller High Life.



Tonight, we decided to play "Ping Key" for the first time. Whenever PLUMP debuts a song, we are always quite excited and a little bit nervous. It doesn't matter if we have played a song 100 times in the practice room (by ourselves) and know the song forwards and backwards, because as soon as we play a song in front of people for the first time, there is a pretty good chance one or more of us will second guess ourselves and hit a wrong note, or play a wrong part, and/or sing the wrong words. I would guess for most bands, as soon as you bring 1 new person into a room, a song becomes much more difficult. So, we feel more conscious about the song because the song is new. Also, as with most of songs, we are curious to see if the audience likes said song as much as we do. Audiences will exhibit signs of enjoyment by dancing, nodding their head or tapping feet in time with music, clapping and screaming when the song is over, and shaking their fist in pleasure. On the other hand, an audience may voice indifference or displeasure at a song by leaving, making zero noise/not clapping when the song is over, or shaking their fist in anger. Ping Key is a funky number, with some cool parts and an interesting guitar solo. I am proud to report that PLUMP played the songs with no major issues, and we got some cheering after the song, which made us feel real nice (and also was quite a relief).



Another roadside attraction on I-10 between Lake Charles and Houston that is difficult to not comment on while PLUMP is in the car is the Longhorn Saloon. The Longhorn Saloon is the kind of establishment that could only truly exist on the Louisiana side of the Texas-Louisiana border. The beauty of the Longhorn Saloon is its ability to function as a truck stop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk venue. PLUMP has passes by Longhorn Saloon to and from Lake Charles everytime we visit Lake Charles. We have only patronized the place once, which was about 2 years ago when Jody was in the band. Longhorn Saloon is only about 30 miles from Lake Charles, so it is not your typical bathroom/coffee place for PLUMP (our traditional on-the-way-back from Lake Charles is the Iron Skillet truck stop in Beaumont). Our foray into the Longhorn Saloon was due to a simple twist of fate: a 2:30 am traffic accident a few miles ahead on I-10 had caused gridlock on the freeway, and as luck would have it, we were stopped right at the turnoff for the Longhorn Saloon. PLUMP headed inside, and scurried around the maze that is the truckstop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk. Eventually, we settled in the sleepy diner that was at that point occupied by PLUMP and what looked like a motorcycle gang. Everyone was friendly. The LHS had some sort of breakfast special as I remember, so we all got eggs, breakfast-meat, biscuits or pancakes, etc. Then, Jason walks up, holding 1/2 of "The Bomb" (which is a large, microwaveable beef burrito), after presumably having eaten the other half. He sits down, sees the breakfast special, orders, and then proceeds to eat the other half of The Bomb. Next, two buses pull into the truckstop. Said buses seemed to have been full of a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. The bus people looked exactly like Cleetus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons, half of whom were hanging out of the windows of the bus smoking and laughing and french-kissing ladies and doing who knows what, and the other half of whom were streaming into the diner and gazing around like the diner was the zoo (maybe it was). The diner became extremely entertaining. I wish I could say that a fight broke out between the Cleetuses and the biker gang, but everyone was cordial. The cordiality was probably due to the food coma to which everyone was forced to submit. The breakfast special was humongous and nasty - one of those situations where you know the food is terrible, yet there is no way to prevent yourself from eating as much as you possibly can. Jason, after having eaten the burrito, ate all of his breakfast, and probably the rest of mine. At this point it was about 4 am, and we were all extremely full, sick to our stomachs, exhausted, dirty, ashamed, and entirely depressed because we still had to drive two hours back to Houston. At least the traffic jam was gone. I remember Jody (who is the best late night driver I have ever seen) stating that he had to sleep it off, so we all took a nap for about an hour in the Longhorn Saloon parking lot before heading back on the freeway. I was burping up nasty breakfast most of the next day. Damn you, Longhorn Saloon.